RLP 89: DNA Report Writing

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 89: DNA Report Writing. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (45s):
Hi everyone, and welcome to the show. I’m Nicole Dyer co-host of Research Like a Pro, and I’m here with accredited genealogist, Diana Elder. Hi Diana.

Diana (54s):
Hi Nicole.

Nicole (56s):
Today, we’re talking about writing DNA Research Reports with Robin. Hi Robin.

Robin Wirthlin (1m 0s):
Hi, how are you?

Nicole (1m 2s):
Doing great. How are you today?

Robin Wirthlin (1m 4s):
Great.

Nicole (1m 5s):
Tell us more about some of the fun things you’ve been working on.

Robin Wirthlin (1m 8s):
Well, I think the most exciting thing has been that we got our laminated charts, the DNA process trees from the printer a week ago, and we sold those at RootsTech and we have them for sale now on the website, under the shop. And those are charts, one is for verifying genetic connections and it takes you step-by-step from the time that you take a DNA test and go through all the steps that you need to go through to get to a research objective. And so if you needed a little guidance or you get kind of lost the process of working with your DNA in your family history research, the chart is a great resource because it keeps you focused and on track.

Robin Wirthlin (1m 51s):
And then the second chart is specific to using DNA to find unknown parents or mis-attributed parentage and identifying who those people are. So the charts are similar up to about depth six, and then they diverge in what their focus is. And then on the back, there’s a bunch of useful tips and resources that you can go to find some inspirational quotes. We just want to help everybody with their research and help you to be able to have it streamlined and focused and enjoyable.

Diana (2m 23s):
I love the charts Robin. And one of the things that I think is most useful about them is that you have the specific tools mentioned in specific places because we watch webinars, or we go to a conference and listen to a class just on the, What Are The Odds tool or the Leeds Method or auto clustering. But it’s hard for us to think of where to put that in our overall DNA work, and on the chart it’s so clear, you know, you’re at this step now use one of these tools. And I think it just helps me to personally just wrap my head around when to do each step and when to use which tools. So, thank you for all of your work, putting that together.

Diana (3m 6s):
It’s a wonderful resource and you can go to our website, everyone listening, and just take a peek at what they look like and get a feel for what they’re all about.

Nicole (3m 15s):
Yeah. Just go to FamilyLocket.com/shop. They really turned out well, I love the lamination and how they fold out to be three pages long, like a Z. It’s really cool. Very unique.

Robin Wirthlin (3m 26s):
One thing that I really like about the charts is that it explains why you need to do the different steps. And so if you’re wondering, like what’s the point of this, there’s a little box that explains why you do each step that you do. And I think that helps to solidify in your mind, oh, this will take me to this point. And then I can move on to the next point, because I understand why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Nicole (3m 49s):
Yes, it’s perfect. It’s like having Robin right there with you holding your hand and that’s what she did for me. So I really love it. Well, let’s talk about today’s topic. We are talking about DNA Research report writing in the process of RLP with DNA. You have done so many steps already relating to your objective and your plan, and you’ve completed your research from your plan and logged everything in a log. So now that you have gathered all this information and compared it with the DNA, what should we do next?

Robin Wirthlin (4m 20s):
Well, the final step in the Research Like a Pro with DNA process is to write your conclusions and correlate that information in a report. And you can write that report to yourself or to family members or clients. It can be informal or formal, but really just want to summarize all the information about your DNA matches and your common ancestors and the verification of biological connections to your relatives. So using DNA, plus your genealogical records, give the ultimate confirmation that your ancestors’ identities are verified and that they’re biologically connected to you. Some people write the report as they research, and this involves either having two computer screens or having two windows open on your computer screen as you research and that way you can describe your findings while you’re discovering them.

Robin Wirthlin (5m 11s):
You can also have your research log open and write your findings in the notes section if you just have one screen. And so you’re opening up just two windows, your research logs, and then your internet window,

Diana (5m 22s):
Right. I love writing my research reports, having my two monitors. It makes such a difference to be able to see my information and then be writing my report using the other monitor. This whole idea of writing reports might seem a little overwhelming to our listeners, especially if you’ve never written a report for Genealogy before. And as I was writing the Research Like a Pro original process, I wrote about why you want to write up your results. I said that after you’ve gone through all of the steps of the genealogical proof standard, doing through research, citing your sources, analyzing and correlating the information and resolving conflicts.

Diana (6m 3s):
You arrive at step five, which reads, “soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion eliminates the possibility that the conclusion is based on bias, preconception or inadequate appreciation of the evidence, and also shows or explains how the evidence leads to the conclusion.” So that’s kind of a mouthful, but basically what we are saying with writing a report is this is how you put it all together. I have people ask me all the time, what do I do when I’ve got several pieces of evidence, several sources, that all point to a conclusion, but there’s no way to show that on your Ancestry tree or the FamilySearch tree?

Diana (6m 48s):
And my response is always the same. You have to write some conclusion, a life sketch, a small report, something to put it all together because often on our brick walls, we have all these different little pieces leading us somewhere, and we have to write that up or else. No one else is going to understand our reasoning, right?

Nicole (7m 9s):
They’re going to look at our family tree and say, how did you get that ancestor, you don’t have any records linked that show that connection. And often we have that situation where we don’t have direct evidence. We have lots of little clues that need to be explained. Let’s apply this discussion of the GPS to DNA Research Reports. Typically, as we research we’re constantly thinking and analyzing our findings and figuring out what things mean. Maybe you don’t realize that you’re doing it, but you are creating hypotheses and correlating evidence. It’s just basically the simple act of looking at a record, like a census and thinking, okay, great- grandpa’s parents are listed as born in Oklahoma, I need to look there for records, and so that’s analysis.

Nicole (7m 53s):
Or the amount of DNA shared between me and a match is 230 centimorgans. That means we are probably second cousins and we probably share great-grandparents. So that analysis needs to be recorded as well. So if we don’t record these thoughts that we’re having, and then we come back to research, the family will be wasting our time going through our findings again. So that’s where the writing step comes in as super important, because it helps us make those additional connections and links between records and stories and family members all in one place. So you will learn as you write and find ways to explain concepts to your reader. And that’s so true.

Nicole (8m 33s):
Writing really does help me learn. Sometimes I’ll have all the clues that I need, but I won’t have put them together until I write them down. So it really helps clarify those connections in your mind, as you describe your research to your readers. I like to think of a report as being just an informal explanation to a friend or a cousin about why I came to this conclusion and that can take some of the stress off of writing a report. And then if you need to go back and make it more formal for a formal audience, like a client, then you can express it up if you need to. But sometimes getting past that writer’s block helps if you just imagine that you’re, you’re just telling a friend in an email what you found. So that does bring up the topic of who are you writing to and who will be reading the report and what they want to learn about their family.

Nicole (9m 21s):
So maybe we should talk about now what we should actually include in a formal research report.

Robin Wirthlin (9m 26s):
So in a formal research report, we want to state the objective or the research goal at the beginning of the report, because it reminds ourselves or our clients or our relatives, what the purpose of the research was. So remember that when you write the research objective, you include key identifying information, such as the birth marriage, death, location, names, whatever you’ve got that can help to pinpoint a single person and establish their unique identity.

Diana (9m 58s):
After you have stated your research objective, then you want to start with some background information. And I like to do this right at the beginning so that it sets the stage for the report for whoever is reading it. And you just want to think about what you knew before you started the project. So for example, you may want to include known family relationships to DNA matches information you got from family group sheets or pedigrees. Maybe there’s some oral history in the family that you were trying to prove or disprove there could be migration or location information that you found really impacted the research project and known ethnicity of the family.

Diana (10m 44s):
If it’s important for the project, the background information varies on every project because every project is unique. So as you have synthesized your research, you’ll know what to write about the background. And I tell people not to get too hung up on having this be perfect. Just write something that you can always come back and fill that in. As you feel like there’s more information you’d want to have your reader know before they get into the body of your report.

Nicole (11m 13s):
I think that’s a really important section and we can expand that and make it as long as we want, but ultimately we need to stay at what we started with another really important section to include in every Research Report is a discussion of the limitations. Sometimes this will be included in the client contract, or it could be included right there in the beginning of the report for everyone reading it to know how much time was spent on the project. You know, if we were limited just to 10 hours, it’s really going to limit the scope and how much is able to be found. So the readers need to know what those limitations were on time. And also the limitations on what DNA databases were available. You know, if we only had the results in the FamilyTreeDNA, then we were working with a smaller pool of matches.

Nicole (11m 59s):
And that also traveled limitations. If we’re researching from Arizona, like me, and our research subject was located in South Carolina, then that does limit some of the repositories and records that we can access. That list of limitations can be really helpful for the reader to understand what we were working with. It’s important to also make a comment that the DNA itself does not give family history information. It’s not a magic bullet for coming to a perfectly proven can inclusion. We have to use that DNA information in conjunction with genealogical records. And so sometimes if it’s a client report, we need to inform them if that important info right there at the beginning and the limitation section.

Robin Wirthlin (12m 40s):
And after you write up the limitations, you’re ready for the body of the report. It’s important to put headings with each section so that it’s not just one long run-on report. It gives the reader a place to stop. It helps you to categorize the information that you’re putting down, and it ultimately helps you write it. If you need to skip one and then go back to it later, you’ve got things contained in a couple of paragraphs. So you’re gonna write the details of your research findings in the body of the report. And it’s important to include explanations of DNA. And the records that were searched also include the name of DNA matches with family trees attached to their accounts that helped you to answer the research objective or include if you needed to build trees for your matches, then that’s important to include in there.

Robin Wirthlin (13m 31s):
And what you found as you built the tree lists the amount of DNA that the DNA matches share with you, then write about the genealogical records that helped us to establish that relationship and the connections between the people in your search. Each genealogical fact is supported by a source citation. You can also have tables and maps and charts that help to clarify what you’ve found. The purpose of the report isn’t only to just present the findings from the records, but it’s also to analyze the findings and correlate the evidence. And so your role as an author is to help your reader make sense of the research. So you can explain how the DNA matches and the relationships and the records identified help to answer the research question.

Diana (14m 16s):
That’s a great explanation, Robin, of all the different things that can be in your report. One of the things I want to point out is that this can get kind of confusing. Writing about DNA is difficult unless you use something to visualize the information. So I love to include charts or tables because it really is true. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I can write an entire paragraph talking about the family relationships, but when I include a graphic that shows clearly the relationships it’s just so much more powerful. So I like to use Lucidchart, but there’s other charting software out there like Draw IO and you can illustrate your DNA matches and those family relationships.

Diana (15m 3s):
And then I like to take a screenshot of that and put it right into the body of the report. Or you can also include that Lucidchart as part of the documents that you are giving the client or with a cousin or someone else. So your charts and your tables can be anything you want them to be just depending on your research project, you could have information about DNA matches on their parents or grandparents, or just the name of the match and the direct ancestral line. So there’s all sorts of different things you can do. And I just let the actual research inform the chart or table I’m using. Whatever I feel is most important to show.

Diana (15m 46s):
One of the things we really need to remember when we are working with our DNA matches is privatizing information. So if you are writing this report for a client, you could give the client the report without privatizing, if it’s just for their eyes, because they will have access to their matches and they will be able to go and see all that information for themselves. However, if you’re going to be posting the report online or publishing it in a journal, you must privatize the living people and DNA matches or get their permission in writing that it’s okay to use their name. So this is something we need to be really aware of because with DNA, we are working with living people and privacy is very important.

Diana (16m 34s):
Yeah.

Nicole (16m 34s):
Yes, that’s true. We have had a lot of questions about that with, you know, if you’re writing for a client, do you need to anonymize the test takers and things, but the answer is no, because that client can go in and look at their match list as well. But the problem comes in when we’re going to be sharing it with people who don’t have access to our DNA test results. And we need to be careful that we get permission before sharing information about our matches because they’ve given permission for that to be available to their matches, but not to the general public. So we have to ask them for that extended permission. So in the report, it’s good to explain the meaning of the DNA connections. I think it’s funny, in the NGSQ they have a lot of explanations of how DNA is inherited and so forth.

Nicole (17m 19s):
And I think that’s just because it’s such a new type of source. We don’t typically explain a lot in case study articles, what census data means. We would just assume that everyone knows what a census is, right? So, you know, consider that your audience doesn’t understand how DNA is inherited and, and explain kind of the basics of it. You may want to just talk about how autosomal DNA is inherited, how mitochondrial DNA is inherited, and also consider explaining the meaning of different ethnicity results and the limitations of the ethnicity results and why the reference population changes over time. And that changes the ethnicity estimate.

Nicole (17m 60s):
These are common questions that people have about their DNA that we can explain in the report. And we can talk about possible relationships that are expected when certain amounts of DNA are shared and kind of the range and what that means. If there’s an outlier. And of course, we mentioned this before, but it’s so important to reference the Shared Centimorgan Project and have a citation to that. We can also explain which DNA matches shared a common ancestors that helped lead to the conclusion and include any locations that were involved in the research. You can see how we started off with explaining the basics of how DNA is inherited and then how these possible relationships that we share can lead to a certain conclusion.

Robin Wirthlin (18m 45s):
I think since DNA is a newer piece of evidence that we’re using in our genealogy, it is helpful to explain to other people what you know about it and how it’s inherited and what the different types of DNA mean because they’re going to help someone who’s interested, but just hasn’t had the time and effort and energy invested that you have. And then when you write additional reports, you can go back and use that same explanation that you use, and it’ll be a shortcut. So it’s important also to remember the citations are critical. We need to have those because they can lead an independent researcher to find that same information that you did such as a DNA match report.

Robin Wirthlin (19m 27s):
You know, you would need to make sure that you said which company it came from, what the analysis tool was that you used, which company that came from, we want credibility. And we want the truth. Even if it might be a difficult truth, we want that to be established so that further research can be done and our integrity is intact. So you can find more information about DNA citations in my blog post that was called DNA Source Citations, and also Diana Elder’s blog posts called Using DNA Source Citations in a Research Report. And then just once again, all the DNA matches that you include in your source citations need to get permission for their DNA match names to be used, or you privatized the name by using initials, or you could put something in italics that was a pseudonym.

Diana (20m 18s):
Those are some great ideas for how to prioritize and our source citations, you know, sort of citations, just like you said, give credibility. If I’m reading somebody’s work, you know, like those old family histories that you read and there’s no source citations, you just don’t believe. At least I don’t. I am sort of have my skeptic hat on and thinking, well, how do you really know about that? So when I see a source citation, then I’m much more likely to understand what’s happening and to believe it. So, especially with DNA, having our source citations there will really help us to have our work be credible. Now in your Research Report, it’s important to draw some conclusions.

Diana (20m 59s):
You don’t want to just lay out all the facts without pulling it together. You want to think about what you actually discovered though. You might say something like, in the course of this research, the parents of Joan Smith were identified, or you could say something like, the genetic connections to the third great-grandparents were verified, or the identity of a previously unknown ancestor has been established. What do you do if you don’t actually have something verified or identified are established? Well, then you can use things like qualifiers. You can say the DNA evidence points to this being the second great-grandfather, but more research is needed.

Diana (21m 44s):
Or you can say this is likely the case. You know, we don’t have to be 100% sure of something to come to a conclusion because often it will take a few iterations of a project to actually come to a point where we can write a proof argument. I typically like to have a good conclusion that at the end of my Research Report, where I sum everything up that I’ve done, and your conclusion at the end of the report doesn’t need to have source citations because you’ve already cited everything clearly throughout the report. This is a chance to just help your client or your reader or yourself, remember how everything came together and what the end product was of this research.

Nicole (22m 28s):
Yeah, I think that’s important to just sum it up and give a short version of everything that was found. I know some people like to jump to the last page and read the conclusion before they read the whole report, just to help them get an idea of what they’re going to be reading.

Robin Wirthlin (22m 42s):
Another idea is that you could put those conclusions or summary up at the top of the report because some people aren’t that interested in reading the details.

Diana (22m 52s):
Yes. Thanks for bringing that up, Robin. I do that for all my client projects. I have a summary of results at the very beginning because it’s sort of an outline of what they’re going to read so that that’s in their head and then they can read the body of the report. And then I sum it up again in the conclusion. So basically three times they’re getting the information just in different ways. And I think it really helps to solidify what’s been found.

Nicole (23m 15s):
I like that. Well, like we said, sometimes you may not come to a proved conclusion with the report that you’ve done. So that’s why it’s so important to include future research suggestions or further research though. Here’s some ideas for things to put into the further research suggestions. Maybe you’ll want to have the DNA transferred from Ancestry and 23andMe to other testing companies to get more matches. Maybe you all want to use DNA to verify other family lines. If you have already met your objective in this report, maybe you’ll want to work on finding additional documentary evidence.

Nicole (23m 57s):
A lot of the time we’ll find a new sibling to our ancestor or hypothesized sibling, and we’ll want to go and do more research on that person. And if you have identified a miss attributed parentage event, we can then work on researching that line using DNA and genealogical records. That happened to me with one of my client projects, where we were trying to use DNA for a certain line, but we discovered that there was a, not the parent expected about three generations back. So that was one of the suggestions for future research was to go find out who was the biological parent there. Another thing to do in future research is to think about other record collections that we could search online or places that we could go visit in person that maybe we didn’t have a chance to visit this time.

Robin Wirthlin (24m 45s):
Those future research suggestions are a great starting off point for the next project. Some other just helpful things about writing a research report are that those conclusions that you made after all that in-depth research and analysis, it’s going to be helpful to you. It’s going to be helpful to your readers. Sometimes that first report is really challenging because you’re trying to figure out a way to write your findings and explain that DNA evidence that you’ve analyzed. But then that next report will be easier because you’ve already learned how to explain it. Then the next time you go through is going to be a lot easier. And it’s so exciting that you’ve reached that step in your research process.

Robin Wirthlin (25m 25s):
You’re at that point where writing a report or the summary of your findings, it’s going to give you a lot of satisfaction and help you to easily share your research with other people. And you can use that report to explain the resolution of a family mystery or to teach about the verified genetic connection between you and another DNA test taker and their ancestors. So as you use DNA analysis, plus traditional genealogical research, you’re going to have a larger and more complete family tree. And one of the bonuses and benefits of using DNA in your genealogical research is that it helps you to identify and connect with your distant cousins who might know more about certain ancestors or lines of the family than you do.

Robin Wirthlin (26m 10s):
And that information that you learned from those cousins could be just what you need to move beyond a genealogical brick wall. I know I have used great information that I’ve received from some of my Olsen cousins who were able to share photos and information. And then we could do more research to understand more about the history and why some of the consequences happened that trickled down to the third and fourth generation. Finally, as you research more about your family history and write up Research Reports, it really brings you to an ultimate finish. You got something in hand, you can share it and you can have a great sense of satisfaction that you have completed our research objectives.

Diana (26m 55s):
I love coming to the conclusion of a research project with that report. There’s something so satisfying about getting it finished. The other thing that I was thinking about as you were explaining all those great ideas Robin was that often we want to connect to our DNA matches. We’re trying to find a way to get them to communicate with us. So I love having a report that’s finished up because I can say, Hey, I’ve got some information to share with you, you know, can do you want to communicate? And they will often reply, and I can just send them that Research Report. I don’t have to write out a lengthy email. I’ve got something that I can just send to them. And that has been so wonderful with several of my DNA contacts on the different websites.

Robin Wirthlin (27m 40s):
That’s brilliant. I love it.

Diana (27m 43s):
Well, I think that wraps up this episode. We’ve talked so much about DNA Research Reports and hope everyone listening will just try writing something about DNA. It may sound kind of scary and you may not know what to do, but we have blog posts all about the Research Like a Pro with DNA process. So you can read it. You can listen to the podcasts and then you can try it because you’re really not going to see how beneficial it is until you actually try it out and get something written down. So everybody go write something about your research. You’ll love it.

Nicole (28m 20s):
All right. That was a great discussion today. I’m really excited that we went through all of that. Well, everybody have a great week and we’ll talk to you again next week.

Diana (28m 28s):
Okay. Bye bye everyone.

Robin Wirthlin (28m 32s):
Goodbye.

Nicole (28m 32s):
Thank you for listening to Research Like a Pro with Diana Elder, accredited genealogy professional and Nicole Dyer. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your own genealogy research. If you like what you heard, please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher or visit our website, FamilyLocket.com to contact us. You can find our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist’s Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.